Can You Really Fight the trick mirror?
Having been diagnosed with depression for ten years now, but dealing with for more like 14 years, I've always tried to figure out how depression works. I guess I do that to find a way to fix myself. It's tiresome to deal with the mood swings, the mixed feelings, and not to mention the blows to my self esteem. I'm tired of second guessing what I see. It's like the mirrors at the fair, where you appear short and wide or tall and skinny,-the mirror distorts your image. As with depression, it distorts everything you see, not just how you see yourself, but how you see everything that goes on around you and how you see everyone around you. Nothing I see is ever clear or free from a second guess. I get so darn tired of that. Sometimes I wonder if depression is actually caused by a way you are taught to think from an early age. For example, my parents always told me that everyone else came first and always put myself last. Is that always necessarily true? I remember being told at an early age not to pray for myself, by my mother, because it is selfish. Not until about a year ago, in a conversation with my father-in-law, who is a preacher, did I find that this was not true. Now, I can understand if I were praying to win the lottery, or something like that, but I never in my life prayed for my health because I didn't want to be selfish. Then ofcourse, there was all the negative attitudes surrounding me between my mom and my dad. I don't know why criticism came so easily to them. I feel I question myself because my parents pretty much tossed all the good things that I done in life to the side, and really zeroed in on the negative things they could find. I received a lot of criticism for things I didn't even do. Sheesh, if someone in the county that was close to my age got in trouble for something and went to the same high school as me, then I caught hell. In their mind, if someone I went to school with was doing it, then so was I.
The way I see it, I started off at a disadvantage. Now that I'm older and have been out on my own for ten years, I question why I suffer so much. Why can't I see what's before me at face value instead of second guessing myself. I wish I could tear all the mirrors down so that I can truly see what's on the other side. I'm sick of feeling the sadness that locks itself inside the pits of my stomach for no apparent reason. Sure, I could sit here all day and think back to the past about all the things that have happened that could make me sad. But instead, even when things are going great, I'm still waiting for that storm cloud to come rolling in or I create a storm cloud for myself unknowingly.
Battling the "trick mirror" in my mind is job I've yet to master. I have to analyze my every thought and every word spoken, just to make sure it's not tainted by what depression makes me see. It's crazy how much depression can affect a person. I'm fed up with taking antidepressants. All it does is make me tired. Sure, it stabilizes my moods to an extent, but I already suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the medicine is dragging me down more. I don't feel like medicine should be depended upon to fix this. I think I need a patient therapist willing to reprogram my thought process. One who understands MY decision and respects my opinion about medicine. I'd like to tell them I know myself better than anyone, but then again, do I? I second guess that too......
Just a little rant caused my pure disgust of living with depression.
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